AI assisted game development (and the future thereof…)

[Clinton Ducks]

I’ve seen this topic being discussed here and there over the past year or so, how AI might automate a lot of game development in the near future. Would this be good or bad?

We know Rockstar (or rather, Grove Street Games) made a complete pig’s ear of the GTA Definitive Editions, and their reliance on doing what I’m talking about with seemingly barely a thought going to properly beta testing what was produced before launching being largely to blame for the mess. There’s probably other examples of similar occurrences all over the place too, no doubt. But that’s with big, open world games such as GTA and the like.

But what about something like the racing genre? I haven’t used them myself, but these AI ‘painting’ things you see on the internet, where users can give them instructions like; “draw a beach with palm trees at sunset, hyper realistic, being invaded by aliens” or whatever, and the results are invariably quite impressive - how will this sort of thing develop further?

With this in mind, I don’t think we’re too far away from any old layperson with zero programming experience being able to simply type into their computer something along the lines of “create a hyper realistic car racing environment based on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, and a Ferrari Testarossa with perfectly simulated physics to drive around it in”.

Might be pretty bad for gaming as a filthy money grubbing industry maybe, but if just about anyone with an imagination is able to create home grown AAA quality videogames in their bedrooms, the biggest revolution in gaming we’ve ever seen might only be a few short years away.

Unless the whole AI thing is just one big overblown meme!

 

[sesselpupser]

If the implementations of AI we've seen so far are anything to go by, this would probably result in a ton of soulless, identical-feeling games that differ from each other only in content. The biggest complaint of AI-produced content - that is the content itself and not the process by which it was created - is that it's evidently formulaic, obviously because it is exactly that, and, like, it doesn't take long to spot patterns in games. Go back a few years and you'll find lots of games by different devs where you can guess the game engine used just by the look and feel, AI-developed games would be that but worse because it wouldn't just be look and feel, it'd be every aspect of the game.

That is of course ignoring the fact that the games industry is already cutthroat and very difficult to get anywhere in, the moral question of AI is a big one. Of course, most people don't give a damn - the majority of gamers don't have jobs after all* so it'd be hard to get them to care enough about people losing theirs to an AI in order to dissuade them from supporting that practice - but I for one would never want to contribute to a world where human talent and experience is cheapened like that.

Edit: *massive assumption on my part but I'm like 80% confident that's true

 

[Tornado]

If the implementations of AI we've seen so far are anything to go by, this would probably result in a ton of soulless, identical-feeling games that differ from each other only in content.

And it's probably no surprise as a result that Ubisoft has been the loudest and earliest in their investment into it

 

[Clinton Ducks]

So I’m the only one imagining something akin to Star Trek’s holodeck?

I mean, everyone’s jobs are going to be taken over by AI at some point, it’s pretty much inevitable. Might as well enjoy it!